


Room

by Beth Harker (Beth_Harker)



Category: Little Women Series - Louisa May Alcott
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Little Men era, Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-06
Updated: 2011-06-06
Packaged: 2020-02-27 03:40:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18730954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beth_Harker/pseuds/Beth%20Harker
Summary: Jo needs a space to call her own.





	Room

It hadn’t been the best of days at Plumfield. Emil had promised to look after Tommy and Nat, and had mostly succeeded, until one of his nautical notions left the three of them half drowned, and tracking lake water through the house. Jo herself had gotten it into her head that she would teach Billie his letters that day, and as much as the boy seemed to be enjoying himself, after three hours of work he still couldn’t get past D and seemed to actually be getting worse. 

The child growing within Jo wasn’t helping much either. Her ankles hurt, and her back hurt, and her darling boy or girl (or monster, as it seemed at that point) had been kicking her in the ribs for the past hour. 

Now Jo knew her moods and her temper. She’d lived with them for twenty-three years after all, and even if the baby had been setting things off kilter as of late, she still knew when it was best to spend an hour or two walking in the garden and forgetting herself. The problem was that she couldn’t really do so in her condition. 

She went to her room and lay down on her back on the bed. She wanted to flop down and pull a pillow over her face, but the fact was that her form was hardly fit for flopping at the moment. 

“How goes it, wife?” asked Friedrich, who was in the room. 

“Poorly,” was Jo’s honest answer. Friedrich laid a large hand on her stomach, which would have been very soothing, had Jo not been feeling particularly prickly. 

“Are you ill?” her husband asked. 

“No,” Jo replied. “Just tired I suppose. You mind if I claim your office for a bit? It’s not fair that you have an office and I don’t.”

The tone of voice Jo used was just the sort that had led to many an argument between her and Teddy back in the day. Friedrich knit his brow, looking a bit perplexed. 

“Men always have an office, but women never do,” Jo continued. “Probably because we’re too busy having babies to need one.” 

Later that day, after supper and a blissfully solitary nap at Friedrich’s desk, Jo felt ashamed of her strange outburst. She tried to make it up to Friedrich before bed by kissing him with all of the passion that she could muster, and from the endearments he whispered as they were both falling asleep, she thought she’d managed fairly well. 

For the next three days she woke in the morning to find her bed empty. Friedrich claimed that he was raising early to make breakfast for a change, but she didn’t think that the burnt eggs that greeted her at the kitchen table each morning could possibly be his, for long years as a bachelor had at least taught him how to make such simple fare. 

On the fourth day he took her hand, and led her up the stairs to a little room behind one of the classrooms, where they had previously been keeping books and supplies for their school.

Within there was a comfortably shabby looking wooden desk, a shelf of books, and inkstand and oil lamp, and even a cunning little globe. 

“You were correct in thinking you need a place to be yours, heart’s dearest,” Friedrich said. “Here it is, and make good use of it.” 

Years passed, and Jo never ceased to be thankful for her room, tiny as it was. She had all of the gifts that a loving family could offer, but at times a bit of solitude was the thing that she needed most, and she found it there. It was there that she retired for half an hour or so each night to scribble in the boys’ conscience books, and follow all of her little projects. It was there that she penned the stories about her childhood that would eventually bring her the recognition that she had dreamed about at sixteen.

Most of all, it was there that that sixteen year old writer and dreamer that she had once been came out to meet the mother, teacher, and wife that she was, and be integrated with her.


End file.
